Two Isis ‘Beatles’ are stripped of British citizenship

British intelligence officials hope that the captured “Beatles” will lead them to the whereabouts of John Cantlie, a British journalist held by Isis since 2012 and last seen in Mosul in 2016, aboveASSOCIATED PRESS

Britain has stripped two Islamic State hostage-killers from London of their British citizenship and is not expected to try to bring them to the UK to stand trial, The Times understands.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elshiekh, the two remaining members of a notorious Isis cell nicknamed “the Beatles” who were captured in Syria last month, lost their right to a UK passport in the wake of a series of hostage executions in Syria that began in 2014.

The highly unusual step was taken by the Home Office.

It effectively renders Kotey, who has a Ghanaian father and Greek Cypriot mother, and Elsheikh, who moved to Britain from Sudan as a child, stateless.